Federal judge in Detroit strikes down state primary records law

DETROIT (AP) -- A federal judge on Wednesday struck down a Michigan law that allowed only the Republican and Democratic parties access to voter information from the state's Jan. 15 presidential primary.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds' ruling does not affect the primary's outcome.

But a spokeswoman for the Michigan Democratic Party said the ruling essentially ends any chance of a Democratic do-over election in the state because the judge prohibited the Michigan secretary of state from giving the lists to the parties.

"We need those lists to prevent people who voted in the Republican primary from voting in the Democratic do-over. Those are DNC rules," said spokeswoman Liz Kerr, referring to the Democratic National Committee. "This is basically the final straw in preventing us from having a do-over election."

The DNC stripped Michigan and Florida of their Democratic delegates for breaking party rules by moving up their primaries ahead of Feb. 5.

The DNC has suggested the states hold new elections that would meet party rules and allow the delegates to be seated at the national convention in Denver. But neither state has been able to find a solution that will win the approval of presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But Kerr said the party doesn't have the time or the resources to pull together another election, even if the judge hadn't made it impossible to get the voter lists.

A request for comment was left Wednesday afternoon with the Obama campaign.

The lawsuit was filed in January by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of other political parties, a weekly newspaper and a political consultant.

The judge says in her ruling she believes the plaintiffs' constitutional rights had been violated. She agrees with their claim that it's illegal to allow only Michigan's two major political parties to get information on who voted and whether they took a Republican or Democratic ballot.

Thomas Wieder, an attorney for the ACLU, welcomed Edmunds' decision.

"This is the relief we asked for," he said. "We did not ask for distribution to our clients. Our view is either everyone gets it or nobody gets it."

Since the ruling only prevents distribution of voter information to the state Democratic and Republican parties, Wieder said others could file Freedom of Information Act requests to get the information.

But a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land said anyone wanting the lists would have to get the judge's order lifted banning the information from being released.

"Under our reading of the law, the lists do no exist," Kelly Chesney said. "That means ... no parties get the list, and the voters' privacy is maintained."

Land, the defendant in the case, was required by the law to give the political parties the voter information within 71 days of the primary. That deadline was Wednesday. But it became moot with the judge's decision.

Michigan Republican Party spokesman Bill Nowling said after the ruling that his party was fine with the outcome.

"From our standpoint, it has never been about who has access to the list, it has been about whether or not Michigan should move its primary up, and we did that," he said.